Amid the damage brought about by Typhoon Basyang, Senator Loren Legarda has filed a bill seeking the modernization of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).
Legarda filed Senate Bill No. 1406 or the PAGASA Modernization Act of 2010, which seeks to create a modernization fund for the agency amounting to P5 billion.
She said the fund will be used to finance the acquisition of modern equipment and communication systems, not the increase in the salaries and allowances.
“The most important element is putting up an accurate disaster detection system and implementation of an effective early warning device and communications system," the senator said in a statement on Thursday.
She said that the government should have already learned its lesson from past cyclones that have devastated various areas of the Philippines, which lies along the so-called “typhoon belt" and is visited by dozens of severe weather disturbances each year.
“Our equipment and communications systems are outdated and inadequate to effectively predict typhoons and point out with accuracy where they will hit, as we've experienced now with Basyang," she said.
This inadequacy, she said, increases the vulnerability of the people, the environment, and the country's economy.
President Benigno Aquino III had earlier said that his administration plans to review the country's weather forecasting system after critics pointed out PAGASA’s perceived failure to predict Basyang’s shift in direction towards Metro Manila. (See: Malacañang set to review weather forecasting system)
Earlier PAGASA weather bulletins on Tuesday said Basyang would batter Northern and Central Luzon areas. However, the storm’s landfall shifted further south to Infanta, Quezon at around 11:00 p.m. Tuesday and directly hit the metropolis before dawn Wednesday. —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV
